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Tag Archives: Historical Fiction

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Feature image of The cover of The Glass Key by Amanda Geard with the quote 'Forty-six years after her disappearance, the name Anna Swan still lingered in Hellebore House, just a whisper on everyone’s lips'

#BookReview of The Glass Key by Amanda Geard

Book ReviewBy Mairéad Hearne24th July 20261 Comment

[ About The Glass Key ] In Ireland, Maggie has grown up hearing her mother tell her the bedtime story of The Glass Key. It’s a Nordic fairytale passed down by Maggie’s grandmother Anna Swan, who mysteriously left her home one stormy night years ago, never to return. Now Maggie’s grandfather has died and going through…

#BookReview of The Healers’ War by Olive Collins

Book ReviewBy Mairéad Hearne3rd July 2026Leave a comment

Inspired by real events during the Biafran War (1967–1970), The Healers’ War follows three lives bound together by famine, faith, and survival in a besieged corner of Eastern Nigeria. [ About The Healer’s War ] As war encroaches upon their region, Irish missionaries refuse to flee, instead building feeding centers, clinics, and a secret airstrip…

#BookReview of Mithim by Carina McNally

Book ReviewBy Mairéad Hearne30th June 20262 Comments

[ About Mithim ] Wexford, 1657. Ireland is on its knees. Eight years after Cromwell’s army burned Killenea Castle to the ground, Mithim McMurrough – daughter of a Gaelic lord, healer and last keeper of her family’s secrets – is living alone and in hiding in the depths of a Wexford forest. The soldiers are…

Land by Maggie O'Farrell with a quote from the publisher on a featured image

#BookReview of #Land by Maggie O’Farrell

Book ReviewBy Mairéad Hearne5th June 20262 Comments

[ About Land ] On a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, Tomás and his reluctant son, Liam, are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged and emptied by the Great Hunger, the task is not…

The Hope Keeper by Heather Webb featuring with the tagline from the description

#BookReview of The Hope Keeper by Heather Webb

Book ReviewBy Mairéad Hearne26th May 2026Leave a comment

[ About The Hope Keeper ] 1919, Washington D.C. Elisabeth Beaumont comes from a renowned jeweler family, but after the untimely death of her twin brother, she’s left on her own to run the failing family business. Desperate for work, she approaches the affluent crowd her brother Julien once courted to expand Beaumont Jewelers. Their ringleader…

#BookReview of #InMemoriam by Alice Winn

Book ReviewBy Mairéad Hearne3rd March 20263 Comments

The must-read, Sunday Times bestselling First World War love story [ About In Memoriam ] It’s 1914, and talk of war feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in an idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. At seventeen, they’re too young to enlist, and anyway,…

#BookReview of #Crucible by John Sayles | @melvillehouse.bsky.social

Blog Tour, Book ReviewBy Mairéad Hearne27th January 2026Leave a comment

‘A complex and sweeping historical novel about Henry Ford — the Elon Musk of his day, in more ways than one — and his attempt to rule not only an automotive empire but the rambunctious city of Detroit.‘– Crucible [ About Crucible ] Already the gateway for illegal Canadian liquor during Prohibition, the Motor City…

#BookReview of Fireflies in Winter by Eleanor Shearer

Book ReviewBy Mairéad Hearne19th January 20264 Comments

‘A mesmeric novel of two young women who fight for love, survival and a spark of hope on the edge of the wilderness.‘ [ About Fireflies in Winter ] Nova Scotia 1796. Cora, an orphan newly arrived from Jamaica, has never felt cold like this. In the depths of winter, everyone in her community huddles together…

#BookReview of The Sky is Not Enough by June O’Sullivan

Book ReviewBy Mairéad Hearne16th January 20262 Comments

‘Before Amelia Earhart, there was Mary Heath: The forgotten Irish Aviatrix who conquered the skies‘ [ About The Sky is Not Enough ] An Irish woman dares to conquer the skies — and discovers that freedom comes at a cost. In 1928, newlywed Lady Heath embarks on her most daring adventure yet: a solo flight…

#BookReview of #TheMatchboxGirl by Alice Jolly

Book ReviewBy Mairéad Hearne7th January 20266 Comments

‘From the multi-award-winning author – a beautiful, stunningly ambitious novel telling the story of a young girl’s battle for survival and search for the truth in occupied Vienna‘– The Matchbox Girl [ About The Matchbox Girl ] Adelheid Brunner does not speak. She writes and draws instead and her ambition is to own one thousand matchboxes. Her…

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